I marked my first official ballot in a national election in 1960, when I was 5 years old.

I voted for John F. Kennedy.

At least I’m pretty sure my hand was on my father’s hand when he pulled the lever.

He had worked the overnight shift at the local steel mill, which usually meant he would sleep all through the day. The kids in our neighborhood knew to stay away from the houses where dads were on the midnight to 8 a.m. rotation. They needed their rest. Or so our moms told us.

On that day, however, my father was up early, and dressed like he was going to church, and he asked me if I wanted to go with him to vote.

Whatever that was.

Among the birthright citizens

The closest polling place was the local United Steelworkers of America union hall. It was noisy and crowded. A man in line to vote put an oversize straw hat on my head that had a Kennedy button attached to it. I remember someone shouting, “Take a picture!” But I don’t know if anyone did. There were no cellphones, and hardly anyone living in the company-built housing of our neighborhood walked around with a camera. Or even owned a camera.

Most of the people in line to vote that day had come to adulthood during World War II. Most of the men, like my father, were veterans of that war. Most of their parents — like all four of my grandparents — were immigrants.

Some of those immigrants, like my grandmother Montini, had never been to school of any kind, and couldn’t read or write in any language. Migrants didn’t travel by caravan when she came to this country. They arrived in boats and passed though immigration at Ellis Island.

The 'right way,' the only way

CLOSE

Birthright citizenship is written into the 14 Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The Republic

People these days describe that as “the right way,” although back then it was pretty much the only way. And just about everyone got through.

My grandmother, owing to her lack of education, never became an American citizen. During the Second World War she was ordered by the FBI to carry with her at all times an “Enemy Alien” registration card. It said she couldn’t own a radio or drive more than 50 miles without informing the FBI. Then again, she didn’t drive. And she didn’t listen to the radio much, since she spoke only Italian.

At the same time my grandmother was declared an enemy alien, her son, my father, was serving overseas in the Army.

I’d guess that a lot of the voters casting ballots that day in 1960 were both veterans and birthright citizens.

Where their parents came from

The ones I knew had parents born in Italy, Poland, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Serbia, Germany and other places.

And I’d guess that a lot of them, like my work-weary father, could have slept through the election. But they didn’t. They wouldn’t. From their foreign-born parents they’d learned what a gift it was to have been born in the United States.

They didn’t take their citizenship for granted.

It’s been that way for people like them all through the generations. As it is today.

The president demonizes such people, the kind of men and woman I grew up around and have known all my life.

There is one thing you need to fear

He wants you to be afraid of them. And maybe you are a bit afraid, because the immigrants of today don’t necessarily look like the immigrants of a century ago, like your grandparents or great-grandparents.

But that’s only on the outside.

The hopes and dreams they have for their American-born children are much the same.

From my experience, the only thing you need to fear from individuals born in the United States to foreign parents is that they’ll grow up to be better citizens than you.